"What are you a teenager in love?"
"It just feels like a dream."
'What's happening?'
When August slowly regained his consciousness he felt …nothing. Like, he was drifting in a lightless sky trying to do …what?
He himself had no idea.
What happened?
As he recalled something slowly, a sharp pain pierced his ears snapping him out into reality …or was it?
August panted heavily while his body was covered in cold sweat. His head was hurting so was his whole body but that wasn't his concern right now.
Slowly his vision cleared out. The sky was dark but it wasn't night yet. Instead, the lands were illuminated by a faint crimson glow coming somewhere from the horizon.
The mountains were the same, plains were the same only he was tied to a pillar.
Before him, a large crowd was gathered holding flame torches in their hands. These people, he knew them all.
His friends, his family.
But neither his wife nor his daughter were to be seen among the crowd.
The whole thing was strange, above his understanding.
Really what was happening?
While these people knew him too, there was no recognition in his eyes for him. They just stared at him blankly, devoid of any emotions.
It was an eerily calm situation.
Suddenly, a man stepped forward from within the crowd. August knew him too. Very well, honestly.
"Chief," he called. "What is going on?" August asked.
Of course the man was one and only leader of this town. Not only that he was August's benefactor.
August was very young when his parents died.
As an orphan, he had to work and earn money in order to remain alive. However, he was rather too young to be able to work properly so he kept making mistakes.
When almost everyone in the town refused to hire him anymore, it was the chief of the town who stepped up and gave that young orphan boy a job and a place to sleep.
August always felt a hint of warmth and familial expressions in this old man's smile.
But right now there was no such emotion in his eyes.
The man just kept walking forward towards August without speaking a word.
"Chief, talk to me."
He cried out loud again and again. Pleading for answers..
"Please talk to me."
Finally, the old man stopped some steps away from him. He stared at August for a moment then something shifted in his expressions.
Expressions of the crowd changed as well. But it only made the sight look more eerie.
Everyone opened their mouths at the same time and spoke in different voices.
"What do you want to know?" The crowd asked.
It was nothing short of terrifying to hear all these voices speak the small words simultaneously.
His heart started beating loudly, his eyes opened wide in fear. When he opened his mouth, his words were trembling,
"My ..wife ….and daughter." He asked. "Are …they alright?"
The crowd stood silent for a moment then spoke again with eerily unified tone,
"How can they be safe? …With someone like you around."
Ignoring the pain in his head, he knitted his brows together in a frown,
"what …what do you mean?"
"Oh?" The whole crowd raised a brow. "Don't give me that."
The pain in his head grew severe, washing over him like a searing pain.
At the same time, the crowd seemed to be shooting glares at him,
"You monster!" The old chief shouted. "How dare you feign ignorance? Don't you have a shred of emotion in your soul?"
August only endured the pain while looking at the old man not knowing why suddenly he was so angry.
However, the old man just kept accusing him,
"You pathetic, selfish coward. You want me to suffer in this agony and you stand there without knowing anything?"
Everyone gathered there started to cry. A strange sight to behold, terrifying precisely.
"Leaving me behind with this burden. How good is that working for you, huh?"
These people were accusing him of injustice but he couldn't understand why?
They had raided his home, dragged and tied him here and after all this they were playing victim?
Why?
However, before he could conclude his thoughts the old chief stepped forward. He then threw the flame torch onto the wood gathered around the pillar August was tied to.
Then the fire burned, old man looked at him with teary eyes and whispered under his breath,
"Good bye, brother."
August cried in pain as the flames rose above, reaching him and licking his skin with stinging pain.
Slowly as the fire covered the whole pillar, his skin boiled and burned away revealing soft flesh underneath.
By the time it reached his face, he was already unable to cry anymore. Only his watery eyes stared at the crowd in innocent ignorance.
Still wondering why it all happened?
With the last of himself burning away, a thought surfaced in his mind. The veil of clouds slowly lifted from his memories.
He recalled the truth.
'that's right.'
'Exactly how it supposed to be'
He understood it all.
Looking at the weeping crowd for the last time a smile slowly appeared on his lips.
His mouth barely opened as he uttered his last words,
"Thank you brother, you fulfilled your promise well."
Flames surged, the smoke rose high above.
With the last breath, his body burned all of it. His pain ended. With that ended something vile and degenerate—or a part of it.
Erasing his presence from the world. Like he never existed at all.
Crimson glow slowly dimmed from the horizon as the winds carried his ashes away.
— — — — —